First All-Russian Congress of Peasants’ Deputies

MAY 4–28 (MAY 17–JUNE 10), 1917

Speech on the Agrarian Question

			   May 22 (June 4), 1917

Comrades,the resolution that I am privileged to present to you
      in the name of the Social-Democratic group of the Peasants’
      Soviet has been printed and distributed to the delegates. If any
      delegates have not received it we shall have more copies printed
      tomorrow for distribution to all who wish to have them.

Ina short report I can, of course, deal only with the main,
      basic questions, those that are of greatest interest to the
      peasantry and the working class. To those interested in the
      question in greater detail, I can recommend the resolution of our Party, the
      Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), published
      as a Supplement toSoldatskaya PravdaNo. 13,
      and repeatedly dealt with in our newspaperPravda.[1]At
      the moment I shall have to confine myself to elucidating the
      more important points of my resolution and of our Party
      programme on the agrarian question that are most controversial
      or give rise to misunderstanding. One of the first of these
      debatable points is that touched upon yesterday or the day
      before in theChief
      Land
Committee[3]at the session you have probably heard about
      or read about in the newspapers of yesterday or the day
      before. That session of the Chief Land Committee was attended by
      a representative of our Party, Comrade Smilga, a colleague of
      mine onthe Central Committee. He proposed to the session that
      the Chief Land Committee should express itself in favour of the
      immediate organised seizure by the peasants of the landed
      estates, but a number of violent objections were raised to
      Comrade Smilga’s proposal. (Voice: “Here, too.”) I am
      now told that a number of comrades here will also speak against
      that proposal. All the more reason for my clarifying that point
      in our programme, because I believe that most of the objections
      against our programme are based on a misunderstanding or
      misrepresentation of our views.

Whatdo all our Party resolutions, all the articles in our
      newspaperPravdasay? We say that all the land, without
      exception, must become the property of the whole nation. We have
      come to this conclusion after having studied, in particular, the
      peasant movement of 1905 and the statements made by peasant
      deputies to the First and Second Dumas, where many peasant
      deputies from all over Russia were able to speak with
      relative—relative, of course—freedom.

Allthe land must be the property of the whole nation. From this
      it follows that in advocating the immediate transfer, without
      payment, of the landed estates to the local peasants we do not
      by any means advocate the seizure of those estates as private
      property, we do not by any means advocate the division of those
      estates. We believe the land should be taken by the local
      peasantry for one sowing in accordance with a decision adopted
      by the majority of local peasant deputies. We do not by any
      means advocate the transfer of this land as private property to
      those peasants who are now taking it for one sowing. All
      objections of this kind to our proposal that I am constantly
      hearing and reading in the columns of the capitalist newspapers
      are based on a sheer misinterpretation of our views. Since we
      have said—and I repeat: we have said that in all our
      resolutions—that the land must be the property of the whole
      nation and must be taken over by it without payment—it is
      obvious that arrangements for the final disposal of the land,
      the final establishment of land regulations must be made only by
      a central state power, that is, by a Constituent Assembly or an
      All-Russia Council of Soviets, should the masses of peas ants
      and workers establish such state power as a Councilof
      Soviets. On this score there are no differences of opinion.

Thedifferences begin after this, when we are told: “If
      that is so, then any immediate uncompensated transfer of the
      landed estates to the peasantry would be an unauthorised act.”
      That is the view that was expressed most exactly, most
      authoritatively and most weightily by Minister of Agriculture
      Shingaryov in his well-known telegram; we consider this view to
      be fallacious, unfair, most prejudicial to the peasantry,
      prejudicial to the farmers, and the least likely to ensure the
      country a supply of grain. Allow me to read that telegram to
      show you what we mostly object to.

“Anindependent solution of the land question in the absence of
      a general state law is inadmissible. Arbitrary action will lead
      to a national calamity ... the lawful solution of the land
      question is the business of the Constituent Assembly. At the
      present time agricultural conciliation chambers have been set up
      by the tillers of the land and the landowners in each local area
      under the rural supply committees.”

“Anindependent solution of the land question in the absence of
      a general state law is inadmissible. Arbitrary action will lead
      to a national calamity ... the lawful solution of the land
      question is the business of the Constituent Assembly. At the
      present time agricultural conciliation chambers have been set up
      by the tillers of the land and the landowners in each local area
      under the rural supply committees.”

Thisis the chief passage from the government’s statement on
      this question. If you acquaint yourselves with the resolution of
      the Chief Land Committee on this question adopted yesterday or
      the day before, and the resolution adopted, also the other day,
      at a private meeting of Duma deputies, you will see that the two
      resolutions proceed from the same viewpoint. The peasants who
      want land handed over immediately to the peasants without
      payment and distributed by local peasant committees are accused
      of unauthorised acts on the assumption that only a voluntary
      agreement between peasants and landowners, between the tillers
      and the owners of the land, would be in accordance with the
      needs and interests of the state. That is what we deny, that is
      what we dispute.

Letus examine the objections raised to our proposal.

Theusual objections are that the land in Russia is distributed
      very unevenly, both between individual small units such as
      villages and volosts and between the bigger units such asguberniasand regions. It is said that if the local population were to
      take over the land by a majority decision against the will of
      the landowners and without payment at that, the unevenness would
      remain and there would even be a danger of it becoming
      perpetuated. We say in reply that this argumentis based on a
      misunderstanding. The uneven distribution will remain in any
      case until the Constituent Assembly or some other central state
      power finally establishes a new system. Until such a system is
      established the uneven distribution will remain whether the
      question is settled in the peas ant’s or in the landowner’s way,
      whether in our way, with the immediate transfer of the land to
      the peasants, or in the way of the landowners, who are prepared
      to lease their land out at a high rent provided the tenant
      farmer and the landowner each retains his own rights. This
      objection is obviously incorrect and unjust. We say that a
      central state power must be established as quickly as possible,
      one that not only relies on the will and the decision of the
      peas ant majority, but also directly expresses the opinion of
      that majority. There are no differences on this score. When we
      hear objections to the Bolsheviks, attacks levelled against us
      in the capitalist newspapers accusing us of being anarchists, we
      repudiate such accusations most emphatically and regard them as
      an attempt to spread malicious lies and slander.

Anarchistsare those who deny the need for a state power,
      whereas we say that a state power is absolutely necessary, not
      only for Russia today but for any state, even one that goes over
      directly to socialism. Without doubt the firmest possible
      authority is necessary. All we want is for that power to be
      wholly and exclusively in the hands of the majority of workers’,
      soldiers’, and peasants’ deputies. That is where we differ from
      other parties. By no means do we deny the need for a firm state
      power; we only say that all landed estates must pass into the
      hands of the peasants without payment, in accordance with a
      decision of the local peasant committee adopted by the majority,
      and on the condition that no damage is done to property. This is
      stated most explicitly in our resolution. We emphatically reject
      any allegation that our view implies an arbitrary act.

Inour opinion, on the contrary, if the landowners keep back the
      land for their own use or charge money for it, that is an
      arbitrary act, but if the majority of peasants say that the
      landed estates must not remain in the hands of their owners, and
      that the peasantry has known nothing but oppression by those
      landowners for decades, for centuries, that is notarbitrary,
      that is therestitution of justice, and we cannot put
      off that restitution. If the land is transferred to the peas
      ants immediately the unevenness among the regions cannot be
      eliminated, that is indisputable; but nobody can eliminate that
      unevenness until the Constituent Assembly meets. If you were to
      ask Shingaryov today—that same Shingaryov who raises
      objections to us and reviles the champions of our views in
      official papers for “arbitrary action”—if you were to ask
      him what he proposes to do about that unevenness, he would be
      unable to answer you. He does not and cannot propose
      anything.

Hespeaks about “voluntary agreement between peasants and
      landowners”. What does that mean? I will cite two basic figures
      on landownership in European Russia. These figures show that at
      one end of the Russian village there are the most wealthy
      landowners, among them the Romanovs, the richest and the worst
      of landowners, and at the other end are the extremely poor
      peasants. I am citing two figures to show you the significance
      of the sermon preached by Shingaryov and all landowners and
      capitalists. These are the two figures: if we take the richest
      landowners of European Russia, we shall see that the biggest of
      them, numbering less than 30,000, own about 70,000,000dessiatinesof land. That works out at over 2,000 dessiatines each. If you
      take the upper crust of rich Russian landowners, irrespective of
      what social estate they belong to (most of them are nobles, but
      there are other landowners as well), you find that there are
      30,000 of them and they own 70,000,000 dessiatines! And if you
      take the poor peasants according to the same 1905 Census, which
      is the latest available information gathered uniformly
      throughout Russia—information, which, like all statistics
      gathered in tsarist times by tsarist civil servants, is none too
      trustworthy, although it does give some approximation of the
      truth, some data can be compared—if you take the poor
      peasantry you get 10,000,000 households owning from 70,000,000
      to 75,000,000 dessiatines of land. This means that one person
      has over 2,000 dessiatines and the other seven and a half
      dessiatines per household! And they say the peasants are guilty
      of arbitrary acts if they do not enter into a voluntary
      agreement. What is meant by “voluntary agreement”? It means that
      the landowners may perhaps letyou have land for a good rent but
      will not give it up to any body without payment. Is that just?
      Of course it is not. Is that profitable to the peasant
      population? Of course it is not. The form in which landed
      property will ultimately be established is for the future
      central state authority to decide, but at the present time the
      landed estates must be immediately transferred to the peasantry
      without compensation, provided the seizure is
      organised. Minister Chernov, opposing my colleague Smilga in the
      Chief Land Committee, said that the two words “organised
      seizure” are a contradiction in terms; if it’s a seizure, then
      it is unorganised, and if it’s organised, then it is not a
      seizure. I do not think this criticism is correct. I think that
      if the peasantry make a majority decision in any village or
      volost, any uyezd or gubernia—in some gubernias, if not
      all, the peasant congresses have set up local authorities
      representing the interests and will of the majority, the will of
      the population, i.e., of the majority of the tillers of the
      soil—once these authorities are set up in the localities
      the decision they make will be the decision of authorities
      recognised by the peas ants. The local peasantry are certain to
      respect these authorities, for there is no doubt that these
      freely elected authorities will decide that the landed estates
      must immediately pass into the hands of the peasants. Let the
      peasant know that he is taking the estate of the landowner, and
      if he pays anything, let him pay it into a local peasant fund,
      and let him know that the money will go towards farm
      improvements, paving and road building, etc. Let him know that
      the land he is taking is not his land,nor isitthe land owner’s, but the common property of the
      people, which the Constituent Assembly will, in the end, dispose
      of. For this reason the landowners must have no right to the
      land from the very beginning of the revolution, from the moment
      the first land committee was set up, and no payment should be
      required for it.

Thebasic difference between ourselves and our-opponents is in
      our respective understanding of what order is and what law
      is. Up to now law and order have been regarded as things that
      suited the landowners and bureaucrats, but we maintain that law
      and order are things that suit the majority of the
      peasantry. Until there is an All-Russia Council of Soviets,until there is a Constituent Assembly, local
      authority—uyezd and gubernia committees—constitutes
      the supreme law and order! We call it lawlessness when one
      landowner, on the basis of ancient rights, demands a “voluntary”
      agreement with three hundred peasant families who have an
      average of seven and a half dessiatines of land each! We say:
      “Let a decision be taken by the majority; we want the peasants
      to obtain the landed estates now, without losing a single month,
      a single week or even a single day.”

Weare told: “If the peasants seize the land now, It is the
      richer peasants who will get it, those who have animals,
      implements, etc.; would this, therefore, not be dangerous from
      the point of view of the poor peasants?” Comrades, I must dwell
      on this argument, because our Party, in all our decisions,
      programmes and appeals to the people, declares:“Weare the party of wage-workers and poor peasants; it is their
      interests we are out to protect; it is through them, and through
      them alone, through those classes, that mankind can escape the
      horrors into which the capitalists’ war has plunged it.”

Toobjections like these, claiming that our decisions are
      contrary to the interests of the poor peasants, we pay careful
      attention and invite a most careful study of them because they
      touch the very heart of the matter, the very root of the
      problem. And the heart of the matter Is this: how can the
      interests of the wage-workers, both urban and rural, and the
      interests of the poor peasants be protected in the revolution,
      in the transformation of the political system, that is now
      taking place in Russia, how can and should their interests be
      protected against those of the landowners or rich peasants who
      are also capitalists? That, of course, is the crux of the
      matter, the nub of the whole problem. But we are told that if we
      advise the peasants to seize the land immediately, it is those
      who have implements and animals who will mostly do the seizing
      and the poor will be left out of the picture. And now I ask
      you—will a voluntary agreement with the landowners
      help?

Youknow very well that the landowners are not anxious to rent
      out land to those peasants who have not got a kopek in their
      pockets, but, on the contrary, resort to “voluntary” agreements
      where they are promised substantial payment.Upto now the landowners do not seem to have been giving their
      land away for nothing—at least nobody in Russia ever
      noticed it.

Tospeak of voluntary agreements with the landowners means
      greatly increasing and consolidating the privileged,
      preferential position and the advantages enjoyed by the rich
      peasant, because the rich peasant can certainly pay the land
      owner and every landowner regards him as a person who is good
      for his money. The landowner knows that the rich peasant can pay
      and that he can be sued for the money, so that the rich peasant
      has more to gain by such “voluntary” deals with the landowners
      than the poor peasant. If there is any possibility of helping
      the poor peasant straight away, it is by a measure such as I
      propose—the land must go to the peasants immediately and
      without payment.

Landedestates always have been and will be a flagrant
      injustice. The free tenure of that land by the peasants, if the
      tenure is in accordance with the will of the majority, ’will not
      be an arbitrary act but a restitution of justice. That is our
      point of view, and that is why we consider the argument that the
      poor peasantry would lose by it to be a great injustice. The
      agreement is called “voluntary”—only Shingaryov could call
      it that—when one landowner has 2,000 dessiatines and 300
      peasants have an average of seven and a half per family. To call
      such an agreement voluntary is sheer mockery of the
      peasants. For the peasant it is not a voluntary agreement, but a
      compulsory one, and will be such until every volost, gubernia or
      uyezd peasant Soviet or the All-Russia Council of Soviets
      declares that the landed estates are a gross injustice and that
      they must be abolished without losing a single hour, a single
      minute.

Theland must be the property of the entire people, and must be
      declared such by a central state power. Until that power is
      established, the local authorities, I again repeat, should take
      over the landed estates and should do so In an organised manner
      according to the will of the majority. It. Is not true, as the
      newspapers assert, that disorder reigns in Russia! It isn’t
      true—there is greater order in the country side than ever
      before, because majority decisions are beingmade; there have
      been scarcely any acts of violence against tile landowners;
      unfair treatment of the landowners has occurred only in isolated
      cases; they are insignificant and in Russia as a whole are not
      more in number than those which formerly occurred.

NowI want to mention another argument that I have heard and had
      occasion to deal with in our newspaperPravdain
      connection with the immediate transfer of the land to the
peasantry.[2]

Theargument is
      this: It we advise the peasants to take over the landed estates
      immediately and without payment, this will cause discontent,
      annoyance and anxiety and perhaps even indignation among the
      soldiers at the front who may say, “If the peasants take the
      land now and we have to stay at the front, we shall be left
      without land.” Perhaps the soldiers would all leave the front
      and chaos and anarchy would result. But in answer to this we say
      that this objection has nothing to do with the real issue;
      whether the land is taken for payment, by agreement with the
      landowners, or by a decision of the majority of the peasantry,
      in either case the soldiers will remain at the front and will
      certainly remain there as long as the war lasts and will not be
      able to return to their villages. Why should the soldiers at the
      front not be anxious about the landowners imposing unfavourable
      terms in the form of a voluntary agreement, why should they be
      anxious about the peasants making a majority decision against
      the landowners? Why should the soldier at the front place his
      trust in the landowner, in a “voluntary” agreement with the
      landowner? I can understand the political parties of the
      landowners and capitalists talking like this, but I do not
      believe that the Russian soldier at the front sees it that
      way. If there is a “voluntary” agreement with the landowner,
      tile soldier will not call it good order, will not place his
      trust in it, or is more likely to see in it a continuation of
      the old disorder that existed under the landowners.

Ifthe soldier is told that the land is being taken over by the
      people, that the local peasants are renting land andpaying
      rent, not to the landowner but to their own committee for the
      common good, for those very soldiers at the front, and not for
      the landowner, he is more likely to have faith in this. If this
      is a majority decision, the soldier at the front will know that
      there cannot be any “voluntary” agreements with landowners, that
      the landowners are also citizens with equal rights whom nobody
      wishes to wrong; the land belongs to the entire nation,
      consequently it belongs also to the landowner, not as a
      privilege of the nobility, but in the same way as it belongs to
      any other citizen. From the day the power of the tsar was
      overthrown—a tsar who was the biggest landowner and
      oppressor of the masses—there must be no privileges for the
      landowners. With the establishment of liberty, the power of the
      landowners must be considered overthrown once and for all. The
      soldier at the front does not stand to lose anything from this
      point of view; on the contrary, he will have much greater faith
      in the state authorities, he will not worry about his household
      or about his family being treated unjustly or being
      neglected.

Thereremains one other objection that has been raised to our
      proposal. This argument is that if the peasants were to seize
      the landed estates immediately, such immediate, poorly prepared
      seizure might lead to a deterioration in the tilling and sowing
      of the land. I must say that a government of the majority, a
      central state power, has not yet been established, the peasants
      have not yet acquired sufficient confidence in themselves and
      have not lost their trust in the landowners and capitalists; I
      believe that we are drawing closer to this day by day, that the
      peasantry are day by day losing their confidence in the old
      state power and realising that only the peasants’, soldiers’,
      workers’ and other elected deputies and nobody else can
      constitute the government in Russia; I believe that every
      passing day brings us closer to this, not because any political
      party has advised it—millions of people will never listen
      to the advice of parties if that advice does not fall in with
      their own experience. We are rapidly approaching the time when
      there will be no other state power in Russia except the power of
      the representatives of the peasants and workers. When I am told
      that the immediate seizure of the land is likely to lead toits
      being poorly cultivated, that the sowing will be poor, I must
      say that our peasants cultivate the land very poorly because of
      their downtrodden condition, because of centuries of oppression
      by the landowners. There is, of course, a fearful crisis in
      Russia, a crisis that has hit her as it has other belligerent
      countries, and Russia can only weather it by better cultivation
      of the land and the greatest economy of manpower. But today, at
      the time of the first sowing of crops, can anything be changed
      by “voluntary” agreements with the landowners? Are we to
      understand that the land owners will better look after the
      cultivation of the soil, that the peasants will sow worse if
      they know they are sowing land which is the property of the
      whole people and not of the landowner? If they pay rent into
      their own peasant funds and not to the landowner? This is such
      nonsense that I am astonished to hear such arguments; it is
      absolutely unbelievable and is nothing but a ruse on the part of
      the landowners.

Thelandowners realise that they can no longer rule by means of
      the big stick; they realise that very well, and are adopting a
      form of rule that is new to Russia but which has existed for a
      long time in Western Europe, in the West-European
      countries. Two revolutions in Russia have shown that the rule of
      the stick is no longer possible, and in the West-European
      countries dozens of revolutions have demonstrated it. Those
      revolutions have taught the landowners and capitalists a lesson;
      they have taught them that they have to rule the people by
      deception, by flattery; that they have to adapt themselves, wear
      a red badge on their jackets, and, sharks though they are,
      declare: “We are revolutionary democrats, please wait a bit and
      we’ll do everything for you.” The argument that the peasants will
      make a worse job of the sowing now if they sow land which no
      longer belongs to the landowners but is national property, is
      simply making fun of the peasants, it is an attempt to maintain
      rule over them by means of deception.

Irepeat—there must be no landed proprietorship at all;
      tenure is not proprietorship, tenure is a temporary measure and
      it changes from year to year. The peasant who rents a plot of
      land does not dare regard the land as his own. The land is not
      his nor the landowner’s, it belongs to the people.Irepeat that this cannot make the sowing of crops this year,
      this spring, any worse. That assumption is so monstrous and
      improbable that there is only one thing for me to
      say—beware of the landowners, do not trust them, do not be
      taken in by fair words and promises. It must be remembered that
      a decision made by a majority of peasants, who are careful
      enough in making decisions, is a lawful decision of state
      significance. In this respect the peasants are to be relied
      upon. I have, for example, a decision passed by Penza peasants
      which is worded throughout with extraordinary caution; the
      peasants are not planning any immediate changes for the whole of
      Russia, but they do not want to place them selves in intolerable
      bondage, and in this they are right. The greatest bondage was
      that of the peasant to the landowner, and such it remains,
      bondage to the landowners and oppressors. The abolition of that
      bondage, therefore, must not be put off for a single week, even
      a single hour; but every seizure must be an organised seizure,
      not to make property of the seized land, not to divide it up,
      but to use it in common, as the property of the ’whole
      people.

Icould finish with this question of the seizure of land by
      answering that the objections against our proposal are based on
      deception when they come from the landowners and capitalists,
      and on misunderstanding, on a too credulous belief in what the
      landowners and capitalists say untruthfully against us when they
      come from those who are neither land owners nor capitalists but
      people who have the interests of the working people at heart. If
      you examine our arguments you will see that the just demand that
      the landed estates be abolished immediately and similarly that
      property in land belong to the people cannot be put into effect
      until a central government is established, but what we do
      advise, and urge most insistently, is that the peasants
      themselves, right on the spots in the localities, take over the
      land so as to avoid any breach of good order. We offer this
      advice in our resolutions, but perhaps it is superfluous, since
      the peasants are doing this without our advice.

Ishall pass to the second question, the one to which the
      greatest attention should be drawn, the question of what we
      think should be done with the land in the best interests of the
      masses when it becomes the property of the wholepeople,when
      private property is abolished. That time is close at hand in
      Russia. In fact, the landowners’ power, if not destroyed, has
      been undermined. When all the peasants are in possession of the
      land, when there are no landowners, how are we to distribute the
      land? It seems to me that we must have some sort of common,
      basic view on this question, be cause, obviously, local
      arrangements will always be made by the peasantry. It cannot be
      otherwise in a democratic state; this is so obvious that there
      is no need even to talk about it. But in answer to the question
      of what must be done to secure the land for the working people,
      we say: “We want to protect the interests of the wage-workers
      and poor peasants.” Our Russian Social-Democratic Party of
      Bolsheviks regards this as its duty. We ask ourselves: If we say
      that the land will belong to the nation is that the same as
      saying the land will belong to the working people? Our answer
      is: No, it is not the same thing! By saying that the land will
      belong to the nation, we mean that landed property will be
      abolished; we mean that all the land will belong to the whole
      people; we mean that anyone who uses land will rent it from the
      nation. If such an arrangement is made no differences in land
      tenure will remain, all the land will be alike, and, as the
      peasants often say, “All the old bounds and barriers will fall
      away, the land will be unfenced—there will be free soil,
      and free labour.”

Doesthat mean that the land will be handed over to all working
      people? No, it does not. Free labour on free soil means that all
      the old forms of land tenure will be abolished and there will be
      no other form of ownership than national ownership; everyone
      rents land from the state; there is a single state authority,
      that of all the workers and peasants; a peas ant can rent land
      from it as a leaseholder; between the peasant and the state
      there are no middlemen; the terms on which land is rented are
      equal for all; that is free labour on free soil.

Doesthat mean that the land will be handed over to all the
      working people? No, it does not. You cannot eat land, and to
      farm it you need implements, animals, equipment, and money;
      without money, without implements, you cannot farm. And so, when
      you set up a system of free labour on free soil, there will be
      no landed estates, no categories onthe
land.[4]There will be
      only land which is national property and free tenants renting
      land from the state. When you set up this system it will not
      mean the transfer of the land to all the working people, it will
      merely mean that every farmer will freely dispose of his land;
      anybody who wants land will be free to rent it from the
      state. That will be a big step forward compared with the Russia
      of the tsars and landowners, It will be a big step forward
      because Russia of the tsars and landowners was a country in
      which 70,000,000 dessiatines were given over to 30,000 Markovs,
      Romanovs and other such landowners; it will be a Russia in which
      there will be free labour on free soil. This has already been
      done in many places. Already now Russia is ahead of the Russia
      of the tsars and landowners, but this is not a transfer of land
      to the working people, it is the transfer of land to the farmer,
      because if the land belongs to the state, and those people take
      it who want to farm it, that is not enough; it is not enough to
      want to farm, the ability to farm is also needed, and even
      ability is not enough. Any farm labourer or day-labourer has
      that ability, but he does not have sufficient animals,
      implements, and capital, so that no matter how many decisions
      are taken, no matter how much we talk about it, we shall not
      establish free labour on free soil in that way. Even if we were
      to hang up notices about free soil in every volost
      administration, it would not improve matters as far as the
      working people are concerned, any more than the prisons in
      West-European republics would cease to be prisons because they
      had the words “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” inscribed on
      them. If the words “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” are
      written on a factory, as in America, the factory does not
      thereby cease to be a hell for the workers and a paradise for
      the capitalists.

Andso we have to think of what to do further, how to ensure
      that there should not be merely free labour—that is a step
      forward, but it is still not a step towards protecting the
      interests of the working people; it is a step towards liberation
      from the landowner sharks, from exploitation by the landowners,
      liberation from the Markovs, from the police, etc., but it is
      not a step towards protecting the interests of the working
      people, because the poor, propertyless peasant cannot do
      anything with the land withoutanimals,implements, and
      capital. That is why I am very sceptical about the two so-called
      norms or standards of land tenure, the labour standard and the
      subsistence standard. I know that arguments about these two
      norms and explanations of them are always to be met with in the
      Narodnik parties. I know that those parties hold the view that
      these two norms, these two standards, must be
      established—the labour standard is the largest amount of
      land a family can till; the subsistence standard is one just
      sufficient to feed the family, less would mean hunger. I have
      said that I am very sceptical about this question of standards
      or norms and I believe it is a bureaucrat’s plan that will not
      do any good; it can’t be put into practice even if it were
      decided upon here. That is the crux of the whole matter! That
      plan cannot relieve the position of the hired labourers and poor
      peasants to any appreciable extent, and even if you accept it,
      it will remain on paper so long as capitalism dominates. That
      plan does not help us find the true road for the transition from
      capitalism to socialism.

Whenpeople speak of these two norms, these two standards, they
      imagine that only two things exist—the land and the
      citizen, as if there had never been anything else in the
      world. If that were so, the plan would be a good one. But that
      is not so—there exists the power of capital, the power of
      money; without money there cannot be any farming on the freest
      land, no matter what “standards” of it you have, because as long
      as money remains wage-labour ’will remain. And this means that
      the rich peasants—and there are no less than a million
      families of them in Russia—are oppressing and exploiting
      hired labourers, and will continue to oppress them on the “free”
      soil. Those rich peasants constantly, not by way of exception
      but as a general rule, resort to the hiring of workers by the
      year, by the season and by the day, that is, they resort to the
      exploitation of the poor peasants, the proletarians. Alongside
      this you have millions and millions of peasants who have no
      horses and cannot exist without selling their labour-power,
      without doing seasonal work for somebody else, etc. As long as
      the power of money, the power of capital, remains, no matter
      what “standards” of land tenure you establish they will at best
      be useless in practice because they do not take into
      consideration the chief factor—thatproperty in Implements,
      animals, and money is distributed unevenly; they do not take
      into consideration the existence of the hired labour that is
      exploited. That is a basic fact in the present-day life of
      Russia, and there is no getting away from it; but if we
      establish any kind of “standards”, life will bypass them and
      they will remain on paper. To protect the interests of the
      propertyless, poor peasants in this great transformation of
      Russia in which you are now engaged and which you will
      undoubtedly carry through, when private property in land will be
      abolished and a step forward will have been made towards the
      better, socialist future; to protect the interests of the
      workers and poor peasants in this great work of transformation
      that you are only just beginning, which will go a long way
      forward and which, it may be said without exaggeration, will
      undoubtedly be brought to completion in Russia because there is
      no power that can stop it, we must not take the road of
      establishing norms or standards, but must find some other
      way.

Iand my Party comrades, in whose name I have the honour to
      speak, know of only two ways of protecting the interests of
      agricultural labourers and poor peasants, and we recommend these
      two ways to the Peasants’ Soviet for its attention.

Thefirst way is to organise the agricultural labourers and poor
      peasants. We should like, and we advise it, to have in each
      peasant committee, in each volost, uyezd and gubernia, a
      separate group of agricultural labourers and poor peasants who
      will have to ask themselves: “If the land becomes the property
      of the whole people tomorrow—and it certainly will, because
      the people want it to—then where do we come in? Where shall
      we, who have no animals or implements, got them from? How are we
      to farm the land? How must we protect our interests? How are we
      to make sure that the land, which will belong to the whole
      people, which will really be the property of the nation, should
      not fallonlyinto the hands ofproprietors?
      If it falls into the hands of those who own enough animals and
      implements, shall we gain anything by it? Is that what we made
      this great revolution for? Is that what we wanted?”

The“people” will have the land, but that isnot enoughto protect the interests of agricultural labourers. It is nota
      matter of us here, from above, or the peasant committee,
      establishing a “standard” of land to be held by
      individuals. Such measures will not help as long as capital is
      dominant, and they will not offer deliverance from the
      domination of capitalism. There is only one way to escape the
      yoke of capitalism and ensure that the people’s land goes to theworking people, and that is by organising the
      agricultural labourers, who will be guided by their experience,
      their observations and their distrust of what the village sharks
      tell them, even though these sharks wear red rosettes in their
      buttonholes and call themselves “revolutionary democrats”.

Thepoor peasants can only be taught by independent organisation
      in the localities, they can only learn from their own
      experience. That experience will not be easy, we cannot and do
      not promise them a land flowing with milk and honey. The
      landowners will be thrown out because the people wish it, butcapitalismwill remain. It is much more difficult to do
      away with capitalism, and the road to its overthrow is a
      different one. It is the road of independent, separate
      organisation of the agricultural labourers and the poor
      peasants. And that is what our Party proposes in the first
      instance.

Onlythis road promises a gradual, difficult, but real and
      certain transfer of the land to the working people.

Thesecond stop which our Party recommends is that every big
      economy, for example, every big landed estate, of which there
      are 30,000 in Russia, should be organised as soon as possible
      into a model farm for thecommoncultivation of the
      land jointly by agricultural labourers and scientifically
      trained agronomists, using the animals, implements, etc., of the
      landowner for that purpose. ’Without thiscommoncultivation under the direction of the Soviets of Agricultural
      Labourers the land will not go entirely to theworking
      people.To be sure, joint cultivation is a difficult
      business and it would be madness of course for anybody to
      imagine that joint cultivation of the land can be decreed from
      above and imposed on people, because the centuries-old habit of
      farming on one s own cannot suddenly disappear, and because
      money will be needed for it and adaptation to the new mode of
      life. If this advice, this view, on the common cultivation

of
      the land with commonly owned animals and implements to be used
      to the best purpose jointly with agronomists—if this advice
      were the invention of individual political parties, the case
      would be a bad one, because changes are not made in the life of
      a people on the advice of a party, because tens of millions of
      people do not make a revolution on the advice of a party, and
      such a change would be much more of a revolution than the
      overthrow of the weak-minded Nicholas Romanov. I repeat, tens of
      millions of people will not make a revolution to order, but will
      do so when driven to it by dire need, when their position is an
      impossible one, when the joint pressure and determination of
      tens of millions of people break down the old barriers and are
      actually capable of creating a new way of life. When we advise
      such a measure, and advise caution in the handling of it, saying
      that it is becoming necessary, we are not drawing that
      conclusion from our programme, from our socialist doctrine
      alone, but because we, as socialists, have come to this
      conclusion by studying the life of the West-European nations. We
      know that there have been many revolutions over there and that
      they have established democratic republics; we know that in
      America in 1865 the slave-owners were defeated and hundreds of
      millions of dessiatines of land were distributed among the
      peasantry for nothing or next to nothing, and nevertheless
      capitalism dominates there more than anywhere else and oppresses
      the mass of the working people as badly as, if not worse than,
      in other countries. This is the socialist teaching, this is our
      study of other nations that firmly convinces us that without the
      common cultivation of the land by agricultural labourers using
      the best machinery and guided by scientifically trained
      agronomists there is no escape from the yoke of capitalism. But
      if we were to be guided only by the experience of the
      West-European countries it would be very bad for Russia, because
      the Russian people in the mass are only capable of taking a
      serious step along that new path when the direst need
      arises. And we say to you: the time has now come when that dire
      need for the entire Russian people is knocking at the door. The
      dire need I speak of is precisely this—we cannot continue
      farming in the old way. If we continue as before on our small
      isolated farms, albeit as free citizens on free soil, we are
      still faced with imminentruin, for the debacle is drawing
      nearer day by day, hour by hour. Everyone is talking about it;
      it is a grim fact, due not to the malice of individuals but to
      the world war of conquest, to capitalism.

Thewar has exterminated millions of people, has drenched the
      world in blood, brought it to the brink of disaster. This is no
      exaggeration, nobody can vouch for what will happen tomorrow;
      everyone is talking about it. Take the newspaperIzvestiaof the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
      Deputies—everybody there is saying that the capitalists are
      resorting to slow-down tactics and lockouts. That means there is
      no work and the capitalists are laying off large numbers of
      workers. That is what this criminal war has brought all
      countries to, and not Russia alone.

Thatis why we say that farming on individual plots, even if it
      is “free labour on free soil”, is no way out of the dreadful
      crisis, it offers no deliverance from the general ruin. Auniversal labour serviceis necessary, the greatest
      economy of manpower is necessary, an exceptionally strong and
      firm authority is necessary, an authority capable of effecting
      that universal labour service; it cannot be done by officials,
      it can be done only by the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and
      Peasants’ Deputies, because they are the people, they are the
      masses, because they are not a government of officials, because
      they, knowing the life of the peasant from top to bottom, can
      organise labour conscription, can organise that protection of
      human labour that would not permit the squandering of the
      peasant’s labour, and the transition to common cultivation
      would, under these circumstances, be carried out gradually and
      with circumspection. It is a difficult business, but ii; is
      necessary to go over to common cultivation on big model farms;
      if that is not done it will be impossible for Russia to find a
      way out of the debacle, out of the truly desperate situation in
      which she finds herself, and it would be the greatest mistake to
      think that such a gigantic transformation in the life of the
      people can be made at a single stroke. That cannot be done, it
      requires the greatest labour effort, it requires concentration,
      determination and energy on the part of each peasant and worker
      at his own place, at his own particular job, which he knows and
      has been working at for years. It is not a thing that canbe
      done by any sort of decree, but it is a thing that must be done,
      because this war of conquest has brought all mankind to the
      brink of destruction; tens of millions of lives have been lost,
      and still more will be lost in this terrible war unless we
      strain our efforts, unless all organisations of the Soviets of
      Workers’ and Peasants’ Deputies take joint and determined action
      towards the common cultivation of the soil without the
      capitalists and without the landowners. That path is the only
      one that will lead to the real transfer of the land to the
      working people.

[1][PLACEHOLDER.]—Lenin

[2]Seepp. 449–53

[On the “Unauthorised Seizure” of
the Land]

of this volume.—Ed.

[3][PLACEHOLDER.]

[4][PLACEHOLDER.]Thepeasants in Russia, as a class of feudal society, were
      divided into three major categories:(1)privately-owned(landowners’) peasants,(2) state peasants, and(3) crown-land peasants (belonging to the tsar’s family).Eachof these categories, in turn, was split up into different
      levels and special groups, based on race, heritage, forms of
      holdings and tenure, legal and agrarian status, etc. The Peasant
      Reform of 1861, carried out by the tsarist government, kept this
      diversity of social-status intact right up to the October
      Revolution of 1917.Draft Resolution on the Agrarian Question|

Thepeasants in Russia, as a class of feudal society, were
      divided into three major categories:

(1)privately-owned(landowners’) peasants,(2) state peasants, and(3) crown-land peasants (belonging to the tsar’s family).

Eachof these categories, in turn, was split up into different
      levels and special groups, based on race, heritage, forms of
      holdings and tenure, legal and agrarian status, etc. The Peasant
      Reform of 1861, carried out by the tsarist government, kept this
      diversity of social-status intact right up to the October
      Revolution of 1917.